This is a couple of months old but hasn’t been widely reported outside of Oregon. The word is just now getting out across the country. Tanya Anderson of Oregon is countersuing the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) for Oregon RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) violations, fraud, invasion of privacy, abuse of process, electronic trespass, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, negligent misrepresentation, and other allegations. According to her claims, the RIAA misidentified her as a subject who downloaded copyrighted music, when in fact she did not, hence the reason for the countersuit.

 

The blog ‘Recording Industry vs People’ lays out in detail the countersuit allegations numbering sixty-five in all. This is very interesting stuff. To make a long story short, see allegation numbers #18 and #51 listed on this blog. Number #51 states that an employee of the Settlement Support Center, working for the RIAA, admitted that he believed she had not downloaded any music but that the record companies would not quit the debt collection activity against her so as to not encourage others to defend themselves against the record company’s claims. Outrageous!

 

It will be interesting to watch this suit unfold. If she wins, it would probably kill the RIAA’s efforts or at least their current approach to combatting alleged illegal sharing of music files. The University of Oregon is fighting the RIAA on subpoenas issued to 17 University of Oregon students, whereas most University’s have capitulated. Also, the Oregon Attorney General is stepping in on behalf of the University.

 

In another case, the defendants got the RIAA to divulge, against their will, that the actual downloading expenses per song is $ .70 each, or there about. The defense in this case is asking that the actual damages be limited to 10x the actual cost, which would be $70 per song. The RIAA received an initial ruling that entitled them to receive $9,250 per song downloaded. Next year will be very interesting for these file sharing cases as it looks like defendants are more able to mount effective defenses against the RIAA.